Citadel of Death (A Captain Gringo Western Book 11)

by Lou Cameron

  “You want the little boy, right? Let’s see, there’s a trail leading north, but we don’t know chief M’Fisi and he might want to prove he’s a he-man on white strangers. We can’t go back to the plantation. Wilma will probably get to keep it, but it’s likely to be crawling with gendarmes for a while.”

  “Oui, no doubt M’selle Van Horn will screw her way out of her late brother’s mistakes. We can’t go west. There’s nothing but jungle all the way to Brazil and the Brazilians have trés fatigue questions for us, too. That leaves the horses we left, non?”

  “If they’re still there. Let’s find out.”

  They didn’t. They took the main trade trail toward Sinnamary and made good time downhill for a few hours. But then, about noon, they heard voices in the jungle ahead and stopped. Gaston listened and said, “Ah, a burial detail from town. No doubt trés curious as to certain details, non?”

  “Yeah, we’d better swing wide and try to come out just above Sinnamary.”

  “We are going into town again? Is that wise, Dick?”

  “Wiser than being caught out in the open country by excited patrols. Traffic up and down the coast is going to come to a halt for the next few days. They’ll have road blocks all over until they get a handle on just what the hell’s been going on. But our faces are known in Sinnamary and nobody ought to be looking for us in particular.”

  “Ah, oui, we can hole up in the room you shared with the unfortunate redhead, non?”

  “Don’t be a dope. By now they’ve brought her head back to town and some cop will be sitting on her steamer trunk. Where did you hole up the other night in town?”

  “Oh, we can’t go there. I had a rather dramatic discussion with the lady’s pimp.”

  “Jesus, you got in trouble?”

  “Mais non, he did. I ask you, is it just for a woman to pick a man up in a bistro and take her to her room before she tells him she is a business woman? I told her her suggestion that I pay later was too droll to consider, so she called for her pimp and I was forced to show them both I am not a tourist to be taken advantage of, hein?”

  “Oh, shit, that means you have a waterfront thug looking for you as well as the cops!”

  Gaston shook his head and said, “Mais non. I doubt if the bodies have been discovered yet. I locked the door as I made my departure.”

  “Jesus H. Christ! You killed them both?”

  “Oui, it was the practique thing to do, since only a fool leaves a witness who keeps threatening him with tiresome words about the police. Apparently she was fond of her rather apelike pimp. So I left them quiet in each other’s arms. When someone notices the smell, let us hope they will assume it was a lover’s quarrel. I left the knife in her hand.”

  Captain Gringo groaned aloud and said, “Jesus, you keep saying it makes you nervous to travel with me! Okay, we can’t go to Birdie’s and we can’t go to your late lady friend’s so that leaves ... I know, the hotel. We have some money and business will be slow there now, in any case.”

  “I love a good joke. But didn’t you say both a British and a German spy were staying at the hotel, Dick?”

  “Yeah, but I doubt either Liza or Von Linderhoff would turn us in.”

  “I admire your trusting soul, but what if you’re wrong?”

  “We’ll be in a hell of a mess. Do you have any better suggestions?”

  “Non, let us press on to Sinnamary and hope for the best, hein?”

  ~*~

  The hotel’s room clerk looked down his nose at them until he saw the color of their money. Then he shoved the register at them and placed two keys beside it, saying, “You will both need a room with a bath, of course.”

  Captain Gringo smiled as he signed and said, “We’ve been out in the bush.” And the clerk sniffed again and said, “So it would seem, M’sieur.”

  Gaston signed and followed Captain Gringo up the stairs, muttering, “That was a bit fresh if you ask me. Do I smell that bad to you, Dick?”

  “I can’t tell. I’m all covered with the same jungle mold and sweat, too.”

  They came to their adjoining doors and he said, “So far so good. We’d better get cleaned up and a fresh change of clothes wouldn’t hurt. You know my size and ought to attract less attention on the street right now. I’m going to stay holed up until I’m in shape for questions from a curious cop.”

  Gaston agreed and they split up. Captain Gringo found that the suite he’d taken was laid out like Liza’s. Hers was just down the hall, as he remembered. He wondered if she was still here and why he cared. Since the last time he’d been with the skinny tomboy from British Intelligence he’d been screwed skinny and his poor old love tool needed a rest.

  He locked the door, undressed, and moved naked into the adjoining bath to run a tub. The water was warm and clear and he got in before it filled, luxuriating as it rose around his grimy flesh. He’d had no idea he’d gotten so dirty.

  A voice from the other room called, “Dick?” and he cursed himself for not having thought to bathe with a gun strapped on. That voice was far too high to be Gaston and even the Frenchman couldn’t have a key to this place!

  Liza Smathers appeared in the doorway to say, “Oh, there you are. What are you doing here?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m taking a bath. How the hell did you get in here?”

  “I meant what are you doing in Sinnamary; I thought you’d left. I saw you in the lobby and followed to ask why you hadn’t left with that tramp steamer as everyone thought. As to how I got in, that’s a silly question to ask a trained spy who wears hair pins, isn’t it?”

  She came in and sat on the commode, unbuttoning her dress as she added, “I’m glad you’re still here. I need you.” Then she sniffed and said, “God, you smell like you’ve been fucking.”

  “I just came in from the jungle. Most of its monkey shit. Why are you taking your clothes off, Liza?”

  “I thought I’d join you. But that’s not what I really need you for. You’ve no idea what a break this is. Everybody thinks you’re gone. It gives us the advantage we need on the Germans.”

  He stared down wistfully at the murky water around his flaccid shaft and said, “Slow down and let me get used to one thing at a time, Liza.”

  She dropped her dress on the tiles, unbuckled her shoes, and said, “I intend to, darling.”

  As she rose to move her slender boyish body over to the tub he said, “Wait a minute, this water’s dirty.” But she said, “You know I like you dirty, you lovely animal.” And then, as he opened the tap wider and pulled the plug she climbed in, putting a bare foot on the bottom of the tub on either side of his hips. As she lowered herself she mused, “You sure fill a tub, don’t you? I don’t think there’s room.”

  He said, “Hell, let me up and we’ll do it right on the bed out there.”

  Liza laughed and said, “We’ve done it in bed already. Let me see, now ... oh, I know.”

  She raised a wet foot to hook one knee over the rim of the tub as he admired the view up between her thin athletic thighs. She braced her weight on her hands to either side, raised the other leg to hook it the same way, and lowered herself, wide spread and gingerly as she added, “I think you’ll have to aim it, Dear.”

  He didn’t think he could, as it was still half soft despite the exciting approach. But as he soaped it, it rose to the occasion and he held it at attention while Liza dropped into his lap, legs spread at an astounding angle as she threw her head back, thrusting her tiny tits at him, and sighed, “Oh, delicious!”

  He couldn’t do much, pinned to the hard bottom on his butt, but the saucy English girl began to move up and down, splashing soapy water up between them with each thrust. For a girl who likes sex dirty, she sure was scrubbing his belly nice with her soapy little brush and it looked wild as hell.

  Liza came fast and subsided as he still throbbed within her. He said, “Hey, don’t stop now!” And she said, “I ought to. I’m a little cross with you. Who was that redhead
I saw you with the other night?”

  “Just a friend. For God’s sake, Liza, move!”

  “Phoo, if I know you, you did this to her, too.”

  “Never in a bathtub. If you’re not going to move, let’s get out and do it right.”

  The thin English beauty began to oblige him with teasing movements as she said, “I ought to make you suffer, but I know she chartered that tramp steamer, so now I have you all to myself again. How come you didn’t leave with her? Wasn’t she any good in bed?”

  He didn’t like to speak ill of the dead, but if Liza didn’t know anything he wasn’t going to tell her. She was a fantastic lay, but about as trustworthy as a basket of cobras, and he knew she wanted more than this.

  Meanwhile, nothing felt better than Liza’s soapy snatch, so he got his own hands on the edges and lifted them both from the tub as she giggled and clung to him wetly, marveling, “My God, you’re strong as a bull, too.”

  He moved over to the commode and sat her on it, still inside. She gasped, “I don’t have to go to the toilet, damn it!” Then as he began to move in his new kneeling position, she leaned back against the flush tank and said, “Oh, how terribly ingenious!”

  He didn’t answer. He came, amazed that he still could. She said, “I felt that.” And he said, “Yeah,” and picked her up and carried her out to the bed. They were both soapy and wet as he placed her on the coverlet. He slithered on top between her slippery thighs, and then, as he tried to get it in again, he couldn’t. Liza panted, “Hurry, I want more!” as he fumbled his limp slippery traitor against her pink wet opening. He said, “Funny, this has never happened before!”

  Liza slid a hand down between them to help, felt what was there, and sighed, “Oh, dear, that redhead must have been too greedy to believe!” She started to laugh when he said, “Damn it, she had nothing to do with it. I was at a party last night and they must have put something in my rum.”

  “I smelled what they put in your rum, you poor dear. But, oh well, God knows it’s nice and clean. Let Mamma raise her little bashful boy.”

  She rolled him on his back and kissed her way down to his disaster, taking it limp in her mouth as she cocked a leg over to expose her open groin to his bemused stare. He stiffened as she swallowed the whole smaller-than-usual offering and he didn’t know whether he liked it or not. There were times when common sense told a guy to quit. But then as he began to tingle in her teasing mouth he decided he might survive after all. Liza moved her hips from side-to side as she lowered her excited gates of heaven to be kissed in turn and, what the hell, it sure looked nice and clean, so he put two fingers in her vagina, shoved a pinky in her winking rectum, and began to tongue her clit. She moaned and tried to swallow him alive at the other end as it started rising again. She gagged but gamely kept at it. Fully erect now, he could tell what she wanted from the way her internal muscles were milking his questing fingers. He licked her turgid clit until she came and fell weakly off him. Then he swapped ends and mounted her right to finish as she pleaded, “Wait, I’m too excited and ... oh, heavenly!”

  This time he knew he was finished for a while, so he said so. She said, “We’ll worry about your impotency later. If that’s what you want to call it. My God, you know how to satisfy a woman. It makes seducing you on Her Majesty’s Service a pleasure.”

  He sat up on one elbow to study her as he said, “Now we get to the really dirty stuff, right?”

  She put a hand in his lap to fondle him as she smiled and said, “I did have another proposition for you, Dick.”

  “I was afraid of that. I thought you and the guys you work for didn’t need me this time. I guess it would be a waste of time to remind you I’ve never been British, don’t want to be British, and haven’t a thing against the French if only they’ll leave me the hell alone?”

  She said, “I assure you what I have in mind is in the interest of both France and your own country as well as mine.”

  “Yeah, you and that agent Graystoke are always telling me that, but every time I do a job for you some son-of-a-bitch wants to shoot me.”

  “This time it’s simple. Dick. First hear my offer. I don’t know what you’re doing here in French Guiana, but if you have any sense you’ll get out, fast. The French are sending in their own counterintelligence teams and they’re good.”

  “I know. I’ve been trying to get out. It ain’t easy.”

  “You’re wrong. I have a private yacht moored in the harbor. I know you feel safest in Costa Rica, so I’m willing to drop you, and Gaston off there as we cruise north. How do you like it so far?”

  “A safe sea cruise with you? That’s hardly twisting a guy’s arm, Doll. Get to the part I won’t like.”

  She jerked his shaft playfully and said, “I’m looking forward to a sea voyage with you, too. All right, I was sent here to make sure the Germans didn’t get away with their planned assassination of Captain Dreyfus. You must know something about the case?”

  “Sure. If Dreyfus finds himself free and talking, it’s going to fuck up a lot of German spies in the French army.”

  “Exactly. And after the last fist fight in the chamber of deputies it seems certain that they’ll have to give Dreyfus a new trial in Paris, with a lot of reporters taking notes. Von Linderhoff’s section is here to see if Dreyfus couldn’t die in an escape attempt or something. Somebody tried the other night but fortunately it didn’t work. They were driven off by the Devil’s Island garrison before they could land.”

  “That sounds reasonable. Did I guess right about the so-called Jewish organization out to rescue him?”

  “Of course. They’re German agents. Most of them have been rounded up in Cayenne, thanks to us. British Intelligence tipped the French off and I told you they were good, given a bit of guidance. Naturally, we don’t tell France everything. For one thing we don’t know how many French officers are on the German payroll and for another thing, they’d shoot you before I could take that cruise with you.”

  “Are you blackmailing me, Liza?”

  “No, I just want to screw you silly all the way to Costa Rica.”

  “I noticed. But you want a little favor, right?”

  “Well, it would be awfully decent of you if you saw fit to get at a German agent I haven’t been able to get near.”

  “Jesus, Von Linderhoff?”

  “Yes, he’s been very tiresome. He knows me and knows I’m a Brit, so he keeps avoiding me, and last night he took a shot at me, the beastly thing. If I were to announce in advance I’d be at the reception for the new American consul, and his agents saw me there, his guard would be down when you went after him, don’t you see?”

  “No, I don’t see. Von Linderhoff knows me, too. We worked together one time. He knows my rep, too. I’d have a hell of a time getting anywhere near him. He knows I’m in town and he must have guys watching for me, too.”

  Liza shook her head and said, “You’re wrong. The sleeper agents we have watching the waterfront reported you gone aboard that tramp steamer. So the Germans watching should have reported the notorious Captain Gringo’s departure, too! I’m the only one he’s watching out for. I know where he’ll be tonight and I have a pass key to his room on the next floor. If you just wait there for him—”

  “Gee, I don’t know, Liza. Von Linderhoff’s not a bad guy for one of them, and while you may not see the distinction between a soldier of fortune and a hired assassin, I sure can! What happens if I say no?”

  She lowered her head to kiss his virile member again and sighed, “Nothing much. We’ll get somebody else to do it and you won’t be sailing to Costa Rica with me after all. I’d feel beastly turning you in, after all the fun we’ve had, but I certainly could never justify any further help to my superiors at Whitehall.”

  She began to suck in earnest as he lay back and said, “We get new passports and a few bucks as well as safe passage out of here?”

  With her mouth filled, she said, “Mmm humm.” It felt funny as hell.

&nb
sp; He lay staring at the ceiling as he considered his options and knew one of them was Liza all the way to the only banana republic that wasn’t out to kill him on sight. There were some nice little things waiting for him there that he hadn’t seen in a while, too. As Liza worked it up for him again he took her head between his hands to draw her face up and kiss it. But as he rolled atop her, she said, “You haven’t given me your answer, dear.”

  He said, “You know what my answer has to be, damn it. Von Linderhoff’s not a bad egg, but I’ve never been this friendly with any man and, what the hell, since it’s me or him, it’ll just have to be him.”

  Captain Gringo sat in the dark hotel room with the bowie knife in his hand, dying for a smoke and wondering what time it was. He’d let himself into Von Linderhoff’s room a million years ago and he still felt sort of shitty about what had to be done. Gaston had volunteered to murder the German and Captain Gringo knew Gaston was good. But Von Linderhoff was good, too, and there were things a man didn’t ask another to do for him.

  The cynic who’d said love and hate were opposite sides of the same coin had been full of shit. Captain Gringo’s heart was pounding and he felt tense as a coiled spring, but he wasn’t looking forward to the thrill of shoving eight inches of cold steel into a man with anything like the enthusiasm he’d have had for shoving less deadly inches into a woman.

  He didn’t like the idea of using a knife, even though gunshots in a crowded hotel in the center of town was out of the question. Gaston had brought him fresh clothing. It still lay neatly folded on his bed downstairs. His trail soiled duds were likely to be even messier by the time he was finished here. He had a tub filled with water waiting, too. He’d leave the blade in Von Linderhoff to keep the bloodshed to a minimum. Then he’d dash down the nearby stairwell, whip into’ his own suite to wash, change, and make it to Liza’s yacht by midnight. Gaston had volunteered to stay and cover his withdrawal, but he’d told the little Frenchman to go down to the waterfront and keep an eye on Liza’s crew. He had her word she’d be waiting when he’d finished here, but Liza was in a dirty business at best and she’d double crossed him once before.